Grand and Subtle Gestures
by MissGoalie75
Summary: If she says yes, this piece of jewelry will be on her hand for the rest of her life. Always attached. Eventually, over time, it'll become like an appendage and when it isn't on, she'll feel naked without it. The concept doesn't quite register in her mind.


A/N: Season 7 is kind of funny – there are quite a number of moments where Jess is mentioned and there are many moments where Jess could've easily fit into the situation. This was one of those times. This basically takes place right after Rory has tried on Logan's ring for the first time in her dorm room (7x21).

Standard disclaimers apply.

* * *

Grand and Subtle Gestures

The ring is very beautiful, no doubt about that. Although Rory isn't quite familiar with jewelry lingo, she can admire the cut of the diamond, the sparkle of the stone when it hits the light just so.

There's only one problem, but it's barely anything: it's the tiniest bit tight. She could always get it adjusted; he was just a little off about her ring size, not a big deal.

She distances her hand from her face, gazing at the ring, feeling so foreign. If she says yes, this piece of jewelry will be on her hand for the rest of her life. She'll sleep with it, drive with it, and do work with it on. Always attached. Eventually, over time, it'll become like an appendage and when it isn't on, she'll feel naked without it.

The concept doesn't quite register in her mind.

She looks down at her forgotten cereal, suddenly finding it extremely unappealing. Why did she start eating it? Now she feels nauseous.

Spotting her laptop plugged into the wall across the room, she decides to check her e-mail. She refreshes the page, pleased to see an e-mail sent to her about a minute ago.

Jess Mariano.

That familiar lurch in her stomach happens again as she opens it. As usual, he wrote a scathing comment about the last book she read and listed a few recommendations of his own. He always had more to share than her at any given time, which is somewhat ironic. Then again, she doesn't have as much time to read anymore.

She bites her lip, an idea crossing her mind. Before she can lose the courage, she responds to his e-mail with a simple question: _Are you free to chat right now? That is, if you see this e-mail on time._

After she sends it, she feels like a moron. _Chat_? Really?

But then after five minutes, her cell phone rings.

"Hello?"

"_Chat? Really, Gilmore?_"

She exhales with a smile, not having heard his voice in over a year. "Hey. I didn't think you'd still be on your e-mail. It was kind of an impulse thing."

"_I was responding to fan mail_."

"Seriously?"

"_No_," he laughs. "_Just artists and writers asking us if we would consider showcasing or publishing them_."

"Oh…well that's cool. Getting business, right?"

"_Every little bit helps_."

Silence.

"_So…you're graduating tomorrow?_"

Sometimes she forgets that Luke and Jess talk on a regular basis. "Oh, yeah, tomorrow." She winces at her less than eloquent response.

"_You nervous?_"

"Like you wouldn't believe," she blurts.

She can hear him chuckle on the other end. "_It's a big deal_."

She nods, her throat closed. He rarely acknowledges that anything is a big deal.

"_Do you know what you're doing now?_" he inquires gently.

This is the first time that question has been directed at her, and it hasn't felt like she's being sized up. "No. I've sent applications…but…" she shrugs, not wanting to talk about the Providence paper and the New York Times.

"_You'll figure it out_."

"I wish I could be that confident," she admits quietly.

"_It'll take time and work, but you will_."

"What's the secret?"

"_To what?_"

"Just…breaking out into the world. Alone."

He's silent for a few moments and she wonders if maybe this is way too personal before he says, "_You don't look back_."

She looks down at her feet, taking in his response. "You didn't?" she practically whispers.

He sighs a little. "_Well, no. But eventually you come to realize that there's no point – you have to keep moving forward. Everyone once in a while you can slow down and appreciate the past…but time stops for no one_."

"Including mice," she quips.

She can imagine him smirking. "_You read that book?_"

"Yeah, it does portray the erratic intricacies of the heart quite nicely."

He hums in agreement.

"You ended up okay…so I trust you," she adds.

She just _knows_ he's shrugging right now. "_I wouldn't use me as an example_."

"It took a lot of courage for you to do that. I didn't realize that until this year."

"_I was a coward, Rory. I didn't handle anything by leaving,_" he tells her.

"You just wanted to figure yourself out. Run headfirst into what you wanted to do."

"_Ugh, please, stop. That sounds like the summary of a trashy coming-of-age book._"

"You were a familiar archetype as a teen."

"_Oh, come on. Give me a bit more credit._"

She smiles. "Fine. It still doesn't make your life any less like a feature film starring an up and coming teen sensation with a future in drug abuse."

There's silence on the line until Jess asks, "_Not that I don't like talking to you, but why did you want to talk?_" sounding slightly garbled.

"Are you eating right now?"

"_Yeah. Haven't eaten all day. Been writing._"

"Oh, I'm sorry! Did I disrupt your _flow_ or something?"

"_No, I was just finishing up. This was a good excuse to make myself a sandwich_."

She snorts. "How's the new book coming along?"

"_Better. I was particularly inspired today_."

"Well…that's good. Writer's block sucks."

"_It's even worse when it gets in the way of your income._"

She's feeling nervous again. She gets writer's block sometimes…what happens if she somehow manages to find a job and they fire her because her writer's block occurs on an article?

As if she had spoken her thoughts out loud, he says, "_Don't worry about it. Your brain cooperates once it realizes you'll lose a roof over your head if you don't work._"

She tries to laugh.

"_Are you going to answer my question now?_"

She closes her eyes, knowing that Jess would never forget anything, nor be distracted from getting an answer to his question. "Yeah…um…" She shrugs. "I don't know. I just…needed to talk to someone who wasn't…completely involved."

"_I don't follow._"

"I mean…you _are_ kind of involved in a twisted way, but not nearly as much as my mom and my grandparents…" she continues to ramble.

"_Rory…just spit it out._"

"Logan proposed."

Silence.

She swallows. "You know…as in a marriage proposal."

Continued silence. Her heart is hammering in her chest. "_Why call me?_"

She lets out her breath. He sounds completely normal, rather curious, even.

"I don't know…I think I need someone to talk to about it. You don't have to say anything, but I think it'll help if I actually…talk about it."

"_Why don't you do one of your pro-con lists?_"

Her breath hitches in her throat. "I don't really do those anymore," she admits in a whisper.

"_They're a good concept._"

She tries not to think about Logan, who said that they were dorky when he caught her trying to decide on which color bag to purchase for the spring. "I thought so…but sometimes they're not good enough for big decisions."

"_That's what helped you choose Yale, right?_"

"Yeah…"

"_Why don't you do that and then call me back._"

"Are you sure? I'm sorry I'm blabbing to you like this."

"_Don't worry about it. Just do it, Gilmore, and get back to me._"

He hangs up.

She stares at her cell phone for a few moments before roughly opening some boxes, hoping to find a spare notebook. Thankfully, she finds one, but there are only a few sheets of blank paper left.

She rips them out and begins writing.

* * *

She uses both sides of the papers. Her pencil snaps halfway through and she spends about ten minutes fishing for a pen from her belongings. It takes her over an hour, but she feels more like herself for writing everything out.

She finally calls Jess.

"_Hey,_" he says.

"I didn't wake you, did I?" she asks, glancing at her watch and wincing. It's almost one in the morning.

"_Nope. Reading_."

"What book?"

"_Nice try, but we're not going down that road. Did you write one? Took you long enough._"

"Yeah. Ten pages, roughly. Broke my lucky finals' pencil." She pauses. "So…should I read everything?"

"_Nope. I think you know the answer already._"

She narrows her eyes in confusion. "What?"

"_Just think about it. Now, I don't know about you, but I'm just beat. I'm going to bed. Good luck with graduating. Make sure you don't trip on stage._"

"Ha, ha, very funny," she says sarcastically, still very perplexed.

"_Talk to you soon._"

"Yeah, sure," she says, sounding vague.

"_Bye_."

"Bye."

He hangs up.

She stares down at the pro-con lists, wanting to go insane. What did Jess _mean_ when he said that she _knows the answer already_? No, she doesn't! That's why she wrote as many lists as she could within ten pages.

She tries to go to sleep, but all she ends up doing is tossing and turning, wondering what the _hell_ she's going to say to Logan. Should she accept his proposal, fly out to California, and forever be called Mrs. Huntzberger? She supposes she could get used to it: the avocado tree in the backyard, the two kids and the picket fence with the dog.

And that's when it hits her.

Marriage is something that should be planned, talked about, but…

Deep down, you just _know_ if it's the right thing to do.

The fact that she doubted it, even for a second, for _this_ long, just shows that she's just not ready to get married. And why should she get married right now? She's twenty-two! She'll be graduating from college in a few hours! She wants to have a steady job and a place to live before she can even _think_ about marriage.

She lets out a breath, slipping the ring off her finger. For the first time since yesterday, she feels lighter, like she's now allowed to use the full capacity of her lungs.

She lunges for her phone.

After a minute of ringing, she hears a mumbled, "_Hullo?_"

"Jess? It's Rory," she says breathlessly.

He clears his throat. "_Are you aware of the hour in which this phone call is taking place?_" he inquires in a throaty voice, making her shiver.

She looks to her alarm clock and winces. "Sorry."

He clears his throat again. "_What is it?_"

"I know what I want to do."

"_Good for you._"

She cocks her head to the side. "Don't you want to know what I've decided?"

"_Nah._"

"Seriously?"

"_I already know. Or, at least I placed my bets on what the sane, independent Rory that I know would do_."

She smiles. "Thank you. You have no idea how much –"

"_Don't worry about it. You came up with the decision on your own, right?_"

"But you helped me think clearly," she supplies softly. "You have a knack for doing that."

"_Goodnight, Rory._"

She smiles. "G'night, Jess."

"_Oh, by the way, I'm reading _A Thousand Splendid Suns_ and it sucks,_" he adds.

She gasps. "_What_? How could you _hate –_" she starts, but he already hung up on her.

She laughs for a bit, never feeling this good in a while.

Eyeing the ring in the palm of her hand, she knows giving back this ring will hurt Logan's pride: he did ask her in front of dozens of people; it was certainly a grand gesture and he told her that wedding proposals are such. But to be honest, he should've _known_ that's not her thing, regardless of what things are _supposed_ to be. She prefers the subtle gestures, quiet means of expressing love.

Huh.

She eyes her phone in the other hand. Subtle. Hm.

Her brain is starting to malfunction as she's comparing Jess and Logan, which she doesn't want to do because that messed her up for a bit last year.

She exhales, trying to think properly. Just because she's rejecting Logan's proposal doesn't mean that she doesn't want to be with him – she really does.

But…

She thinks about Jess and how he represents freedom and an open future; that used to scare her, but right now, without the ring weighing her hand down, she's beginning to appreciate that.

Hopefully, Logan will understand that.

(But as she's falling asleep, something in the back of her mind says otherwise).

* * *

A/N: I hope you enjoyed it? Just something random that wouldn't stop bothering me until it was written down. Surprisingly, this wasn't inspired by any song lyrics (ha, ha).

Please review!

MissGoalie


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